No Answer in the Dust
by shooting-stetsons
Summary: Sherlock and fem!John in the aftermath of a horrible hostage situation with Moriarty.


_There is a hollow in my chest_ _  
>The time I won't forget<em> _  
>There is no comfort in the eyes<em> _  
>That put us always to the test<em>  
><em>I can't prepare myself for that<em>  
><em>But I'll work it out in time<em> _  
>There is a love that flows between us<em> _  
>Ever-changing every day<em>

He doesn't know how to look at her anymore.

They drift through their usual routines from one day to the next as they have since they met, day after she shot a serial killer through two windows for him. She makes too much tea, he avoids housework, she goes to work, he drags her to cases, she gets caught singing off-key in the shower, he deliberately abuses his violin when frustrated, and they convince themselves that things are back to normal.

At night he listens to her crying, and it's not in the way she does after a nightmare. It's the way a person does when they have been fighting the darkness pulling on them and their strength has finally given out. He wonders if he should do something. He does nothing.

They pretend that nothing happened, or when that is impossible they pretend that they did it of their own will, that the act was not committed under the threat of those horrible red dots of light. Those days are almost easier, and when he walks too quickly she isn't hesitant to latch onto his coat to keep up. Her eyes aren't as hard and distant when they are near one another, and his voice goes back to its normal volume. These are good days.

Then there are days like these, when it seems that everything is going wrong, when she is vomited on three times at the surgery and he blows something up in the kitchen, when she is exhausted to her very bones and his patience has been stretched to its limits, when they fight at the tip of a hat and he slips for just long enough to insult her intelligence and she finally snaps and screams the ugly truth, that _you raped me, Sherlock!_

_I worked myself up to a crawl_ _  
>But I'm not fearing it at all<em> _  
>We have no reason left to stay<em> _  
>And that's why we're leaving<em> _  
>And there was no answer in the dust<em> _  
>And the one I feared to trust<em> _  
>There is a lie that drags us<em> _  
>Beating and brawling into disappointment<em>

He doesn't know what to say to her anymore.

He is so accustomed to being the man with the answers, who can read livelihoods and hobbies and relationships at a barest glance, who is stuffed to the gills with statistics and chemical measurements, who had never failed to spit abuse into the eyes of the fools constantly surrounding him, that when she raises her voice and he has no answers he is struck dumb.

Her rage vanishes the moment she sees the look on his face, hears the desperate catch in his throat when he tries to speak but just can't, and crumbles. She has been so strong in his presence for too long; she never wanted him to see her like this, like the stereotypically weak woman who can't take care of herself, even if all she wants is to clear the air, and now she's gone and broken him too and it's just too much to take.

They must be quite the sight, standing two feet away but looking anywhere but at one another, tears rolling freely from her eyes as she sucks long gasps of air in a horrible attempt to stop her own gaudy display of emotion while he stares determinedly at the floor with one long hand pressed firmly over his mouth, scanning his too-vast mind for the answers required to save the wreckage of their dysfunctional-at-best friendship.

Several minutes pass in this way before she has to collapse onto the sofa, hugging herself tightly around her heaving stomach. She's been ill on and off for weeks and is too terrified to contemplate what that might mean. She tells him to sit down, that his pacing is making her dizzy, and so he sits.

It takes five minutes for her to fight her self-loathing long enough to lean against his arm.

It takes almost half an hour for him to find the strength to wrap that arm around her shoulders.

She asks him, _how will we come back from this?_

He doesn't have an answer now, but resolves to find one or die trying.

When she falls asleep on his shoulder, he carries her to bed, turns out the lights, and presses a kiss to her forehead before going downstairs and playing sickening lullabies of blood, and fear, and pain on his violin until the first sign of morning.

_I'm disappointed  
>I'm disappointed<br>I'm disappointed  
>It's too late, and you're gone<em>


End file.
